Dance Academy

It's Tara's final year at the Academy and her preparations for a surprise 18th birthday for Abigail clash with a tantalising opportunity for Third Years to audition for temporary roles in the National Company's current ballet.

On their first day as fill-in dancers, the students encounter impervious cliques in the corps de ballet and the girls discover their debut roles require a major display of humility. The day goes from bad to nightmarish when former teacher, Saskia Duncan, who made Second Year a living hell is welcomed back to the Company as their principal ballerina.

Kat is struggling to stay positive and her determination to advance into Third Year is morphing into dangerous patterns. When visiting Academy alumnus, Marcus Kane, assigns the Second Years a character assignment, Kat uses it to put herself into the shoes of a young, university student. Grace feels stifled by Miss Raine's attempt at parenting.

Ben has to choose between the girl he cares about and the opportunity to partner a principal dancer, while Tara is worried about Kat but goes about trying to fix her in all the wrong ways. Ollie challenges Abigail to a dance off.

Saskia schemes to arrange an early audition for her favourite student, with disastrous results, while Ollie continues to pursue career alternatives and creates a professional music video.

The Academy goes a little Hollywood as a film crew arranges to use their buildings as a location for an exciting new dance movie. Abigail's attention is piqued when she is told her lowly role in the Third Year production of Romeo and Juliet is due to her being earmarked for the lead in the complementary contemporary ballet on the regional tour.

Life on tour. The Third Years are having the time of their lives on the road performing in a tableau of country towns of Australia, but are prioritising fun over performance. Frustrated with their complacency, Zach promises to shake up the cast list if they don't start committing. As the tour rolls into the quirky town of Balangurrk, Christian sees a chance to take the Romeo role from Ben.

When Zach voices doubts about the attraction between his leads in Romeo & Juliet, Tara feels it's time to take her relationship with Ben to the next level. And Wes leads Abigail to face the reason for her dissatisfaction with ballet.

A career-making performance opportunity brings out the best and worst in everyone and an injury that sidelines Ollie prompts him to use someone to get ahead.

It's time for Streetbeatz and Ollie has his hip hop crew prepared for battle. Christian is struggling to keep his head above water as his dissatisfaction with himself and the decisions he's made over recent years really starts to compound. When his young fan, Jayden, makes good Christian's offer and shows up to join their crew, Christian sees some hope and takes him under his wing.

The Third Years feel like their year has been reset when the Company's ballet mistress Rebecca Braithwaite is promoted to Artistic Director following the shock retirement of Sir Jeffrey McEwan. As they are handed solos for their final Company auditions, our gang realise the old 'favourites list' no longer applies and they know little about the inclinations of the new Artistic Director.

Our dancers have finally reached the ultimate test, the culmination of their three years at the Academy: the Company Auditions. When Tara learns that Miss Raine is resigning as Principal and moving to America to live with Marcus, she feels the overwhelming need to thank her mentor properly and end her time at the Academy on the best note possible.

In their Company interviews the students finally learn if they will receive a professional contract with the National Ballet Company.